1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting apparatus having a cutting blade for cutting a thin platelike workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer and a substrate for various electronic parts, and more particularly to a cutting apparatus having a blade cover for covering the cutting blade.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a precision cutting apparatus such as a dicing apparatus for dividing a workpiece such as a semiconductor wafer into many chips, a cutting blade is mounted on the front end of a spindle adapted to rate at high speeds. By rotating the spindle, the cutting blade is rotated to cut the workpiece.
In this kind of cutting apparatus, a cutting fluid is supplied to the cutting blade during cutting, so as to remove process heat generated due to cutting and also remove cut dust generated in cutting from the upper surface of the workpiece. Particularly in the case that the workpiece is a wafer on which imaging devices such as CMOSs and CCDs are formed or a substrate on which optical devices such as filters and optical pickup devices are formed, there is a possibility that the adhesion of cut dust to the devices may cause poor quality of the devices. Accordingly, great importance is placed on the removal of the cut dust to prevent the adhesion of the cut dust to the workpiece. Once the cut dust sticks to the workpiece and then dries, it is very difficult to remove the cut dust in a subsequent cleaning step. To cope with this problem, there has been proposed a technique of supplying a cleaning water to the upper surface of a workpiece during cutting to thereby prevent the adhesion of cut dust as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-231474, for example.